DOCSLIB.ORG

Alasdair Mac Intyre, Charles Taylor, and the Demise Of

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Alasdair Mac Intyre, Charles Taylor, and the Demise Of ALASDAIR MAC INTYRE, CHARLES TaYLOR, AND THE DEMISE OF NATURALISM Reunifying Political Theory and Social Science JASON BLAKELY University of Notre Dame Press Notre Dame, Indiana Copyright 2016 University of Notre Dame I NTRODUCTION The Problem of Superstition and the Divorce of Political Theory from Social Science Imagine a far- flung, primitive society in which the sudden invention of an alphabet radically improves the lives of the inhabitants. Whereas once they communicated their traditions orally and were able to retain only limited amounts of knowledge, suddenly they are able to store vast quantities of information in written tomes. Their capacity for expression through written media also diversifies and deepens. Captivated by this great leap forward, this society develops a mania for writing. They write letters, journals, and books; they open institutes devoted to the written word and amass vast libraries. Their knowledge of the world advances in countless indisputable ways. They also, however, become so obsessed with written language that they gradually come to devalue speech in any form whatsoever. Various social and political movements that are hostile to speaking arise. Some of society’s brightest intellectuals demote speak- ing to a lesser form than written communication. “Speaking is dead,” these intellectuals adopt as their motto— which they write down because they refuse to speak it aloud anymore. This, of course, is a wild fiction. But something like it has happened in our own time in the wake of the scientific revolution. For although the 1 Copyright 2016 University of Notre Dame 2 Alasdair MacIntyre, Charles Taylor, and the Demise of Naturalism natural sciences have undoubtedly proved to be a great leap forward, nev- ertheless their influence has also begun to overstep rational boundaries. As a result, our own society has become like that of the alphabet-obsessed primitives, in that the sciences (or at least a certain philosophical view of the sciences) have started to morph into various forms of superstition and political control. This may seem strange. Science is widely regarded as not only the exact opposite of superstition but also entirely apolitical. Yet science becomes superstitious and political precisely when it over- steps its bounds— when it seeks to replace and displace all prescientific forms of knowing and remake the world in its image. This book examines how a certain mistaken philosophical concep- tion of the natural sciences has inspired both superstitious and politically menacing forms of thinking in the domains of political theory and the social sciences. This phenomenon is far from new. There is a long history of scientism in the study of human culture and society— for example, the infamous eighteenth- century development of physiognomy, which claimed that an individual’s personality was completely determinable by the physical features of his or her face.1 Similarly in the nineteenth cen- tury, Auguste Comte called for a “social physics” and posited the “law of human development” as a three- stage evolution of history culminat- ing in a form of scientific society that eliminated any serious need for religion or the humanities.2 Comte’s was of course only one of many “sciences” of history—including certain strains of social Darwinism, sci- entific socialism, technocratic utilitarianism, sociobiology, and so on— that crowded, confused, and menaced the political and intellectual life of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries in Europe. In the coming chapters I will explore in detail how in our own time, these attempts to imitate the natural sciences have become more sophisticated and subtle (if no less problematic) than the physiognomy, the social physics, and the rest of the teeming mass of pseudosciences of two centuries past. But this book will also propose a way out of the scientism that clouds our age. In doing so, it will show how the reunification of social science and political theory can be achieved. Specifically, it will look to the ar- gumentative resources of two recent philosophers— Charles Taylor and Alasdair Mac Intyre— who each presented a new philosophical basis for social science theory in the face of reductive instrumental, technocratic, Copyright 2016 University of Notre Dame Introduction 3 and pseudoscientific ways of thinking. What I offer here is a philosophi- cal history of two of the most important thinkers of the late twentieth century. My basic overarching assumption is that the story of how these two philosophers developed their views of social science generates a new approach to political inquiry that speaks to the concrete concerns of po- litical theorists, social scientists, and policy makers. I will briefly elabo- rate its relevance to each of these three communities in turn. First, Taylor’s and Mac Intyre’s philosophical formulations of a new social science give political theorists a clear way to overcome the view that science is concerned with hard, objective facts while political theory mucks around in the subjectivity of values. Political theorists are often told that social scientists are concerned with empirical analysis, while theorists must be constrained to purely normative claims of value. But a proper recovery of Taylor’s and MacI ntyre’s views of social science shows that empirical science and normative inquiry cannot be successfully dichotomized. In overcoming this fact-v alue divide, this study offers political the- orists and philosophers an alternative to approaches that have dominated Anglophone philosophy for over forty years. For example, one way of thinking of the late John Rawls’s massively influential project is as a vin- dication of political and normative philosophy after the challenges posed by the fact- value dichotomy. At midcentury, the logical positivists had famously declared political philosophy dead because its language was un- verifiable and therefore essentially emotive (a discussion I return to in greater detail in later chapters).3 In other words, political theory was not a true form of knowledge because it dealt in subjective values and not in objective facts. In this context, Rawls’s project was received by many as a resuscitation of political and normative philosophy that showed such research could be established on rational grounds, largely free from ques- tions of fact. Rawls’s A Theory of Justice can be read (and indeed was read by many) as an attempt to carve out a radically autonomous sphere for rational normative justification, separate from the empirical researches of the social sciences, thus not running afoul of the philosophical divi- sion between facts and values. Although interest in logical positivism has long since waned, the notion that there is a dichotomy between facts and values has continued to remain largely unquestioned within mainstream Copyright 2016 University of Notre Dame 4 Alasdair MacIntyre, Charles Taylor, and the Demise of Naturalism social science and analytic philosophy. Partly for this reason, Anglophone political philosophy has been hugely attracted to the Rawlsian paradigm. By contrast, in rejecting a strong separation between normative and empirical research, Taylor and Mac Intyre have opened new, non- Rawlsian routes out of the fact-v alue dichotomy. Recovering this aspect of their work thus debunks the myth that Anglophone political theory was made defunct by positivism until Rawls arrived on the scene and re- suscitated the cadaver.4 Rather, the approaches to social science cham- pioned by Taylor and Mac Intyre have roots extending back to the early 1960s, with normative ramifications that have yet to be fully realized by philosophers and political theorists. I hope to make these ramifications clear in the account that follows. Second, social science in our own day is overwhelmed by the towering accomplishments of the natural sciences. Social scientists are everywhere on the defensive as they are asked to meet the same success in prediction, explanation, and technological control as is found in the pre- cincts of physics and biology. But what if the predictive, technological- control model of scientific success is a mistaken standard when applied to the social sciences? My treatment of Taylor and MacI ntyre is a narrative of the historical emergence of an alternative philosophy of social science to those that currently shape the majority of research programs in society and politics. As shall be made clear, Taylor and MacI ntyre each drew on a long tradition of interpretive thought that includes the cultural studies of E. P. Thompson, the linguistic philosophies of Ludwig Wittgenstein and Peter Winch, and the phenomenology and hermeneutics of G. W. F. Hegel, Martin Heidegger, and Hans- Georg Gadamer. Although Mac- Intyre and Taylor are not sui generis, I believe they do represent the state of the art in interpretive philosophy of social science. In this respect, the narrative that follows is meant to vindicate and revive interpretive insights in the face of skepticism and opposition. Over fifty years have passed since the much hailed “interpretive turn” emerged in the English- speaking world.5 Yet today the reforms of this turn have stalled. And although many social scientists now accept certain inter- pretive criticisms of their work, they also tend to treat interpretivism as one method among many, one more tool in a kit.6 Taylor’s and Mac- Intyre’s philosophical accounts of the social sciences run directly against Copyright 2016 University of Notre Dame Introduction 5 this tendency. Their philosophies give social scientists working in all disciplines (from economics and sociology to political science and psy- chology) an alternative theoretical framework for conducting research. This interpretive framework also provides social scientists with a norma- tively engaged way to do research, bridging the gap with political theory and ethics. Social science and political theory can at last be reunified. Third, policy makers and everyday political actors will find in these pages the philosophical justification for more deliberative, democratic, and antielitist approaches to politics.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Peter Mango MACINTYRE's GILSONIAN PREFERENCE
    Studia Gilsoniana 2 (2013): 21-32 | ISSN 2300-0066 Peter Mango Institute for the Psychological Sciences Arlington, Virginia, USA MACINTYRE’S GILSONIAN PREFERENCE “No philosopher can know that he is a Thomist unless he also be an historian.” - Étienne Gilson Étienne Gilson claimed more people were Thomist because they were Catholic than became Catholic because they were first Thomist. However true, the latter class is usually more interesting. Instances include Mortimer Adler, Jacques Maritain, Walker Percy – and Alasdair MacIn- tyre. In 1988 Alasdair MacIntyre had announced his preference for Thomism as a philosophical tradition after a famously long and varied trajectory. The trajectory included stretches as: an Oxford tutor in classics; a convinced Barthian; an analytic thinker co-publishing with Anthony Flew; a student of Hegel; a New Left Marxist; a student of medieval lan- guages (e.g., Old Norse); a student of phenomenology and psychoanalysis, respectively; an anthropological sociologist influenced by Franz Steiner, Mary Douglas, and Evans-Pritchard; a neo-Aristotelian; and someone dis- playing a persistent interest in Wittgenstein. By the time he “landed” over two decades ago, however, MacIntyre was not a product of mere faddism. The themes MacIntyre presupposes in his work have occupied him throughout his professional career. Nor has he abandoned all the stages listed above (indeed he retains the last five synthetically). A Thomist once remarked to me that it seemed, given his late arri- val, MacIntyre was a “baby” as far as Thomism is concerned. Justly noted 22 Peter Mango or not, I pointed out MacIntyre is not a “baby” as far as philosophy is con- cerned.
    [Show full text]
  • An Augustinian Correction to a Faulty Option: the Politics of Salt and Light
    Journal of Moral Theology, Vol. 10, No. 1 (2021): 46–72 An Augustinian Correction to a Faulty Option: The Politics of Salt and Light Anthony Crescio INCE ITS PUBLICATION IN 2017, Rod Dreher’s The Benedict Option: A Strategy for Christians in a Post-Christian Nation has given rise to a cottage industry, including a wide range of S publications on the subject (either in support of or against) and conferences across the country. To be sure, a Christian perspective fully supports many elements in Dreher’s thought, like his calls for homes to become places of spiritual learning and growth,1 that institu- tions of Christian education take seriously their role in Christian for- mation,2 and the Church undergo a ressourcement type of renewal in all facets of its life.3 However, it is in the last area of ecclesiology where Dreher’s option ultimately fails in several ways because he does not grasp the full import of the sacramental ontology. While he rightly advocates a need for recovering it, he falls short in implementing it.4 His is, put simply, a failure of the imagination which has disastrous consequences for his understanding of how the church ought to engage in the political sphere. In order to demonstrate this failure, I adopt Dreher’s ressourcement methodology5 by engaging Augustine of Hippo as the primary inter- locutor and proceeding by way of four main steps. First, I discuss three ways Dreher’s work represents a failure of imagination. With the sec- ond step, I lay out Augustine’s sacramental metaphysics and corre- sponding ecclesiology.
    [Show full text]
  • 209 Alasdair Macintyre. Ethics in The
    Philosophy in Review XXXVII (October/December 2017), no. 5/6 Alasdair MacIntyre. Ethics in the Conflicts of Modernity: An Essay on Desire, Practical Reason- ing, and Narrative. Cambridge University Press 2016. 332 pp. $49.99 USD (Hardcover ISBN 9781107176454). Alasdair MacIntyre once quipped that his philosophical work, which began with A Short History of Ethics, had gradually morphed over the years into a very long history of ethics. His latest book, published at the age of 87, certainly adds another chapter to this ongoing project: revising the history of ethics by recuperating Aristotle and launching a scathing critique of modernity. Although MacIntyre’s general body of thought is quite remarkable (he is arguably one of today’s most underappreciated philosophers), his latest book in some respects struggles to find a sense of identity. This is especially true when read in light of the path-breaking arguments of works like After Virtue (1981), Whose Justice? Which Rationality? (1988), and Three Rival Versions of Moral Enquiry (1990). Indeed, the major claims of those books are largely reiterated here—the diagnosis of emotivism (updated as a more sophisticated ‘expressivism’), the critique of the Enlightenment (here a critique of ‘Morality’), and the need to recover Aristotle and Aquinas. One possible response to the complaint that this book is largely reiterative would be to note that its stated purpose is not innovation, but an accessible introduction ‘to the lay reader for whom it is written’ (ix). Yet, if MacIntyre’s goal was a book for a general readership, then he has probably missed his target.
    [Show full text]
  • Narrativity and Self-Opacity As Resources for Contemporary Ethics in Alasdair Macintyre and Judith Butler"
    Title: "(De-)Constructing An Account of the Self: Narrativity and Self-Opacity as Resources for Contemporary Ethics in Alasdair MacIntyre and Judith Butler" Bio: Originally from Manassas, Virginia, Elizabeth Antus is currently a 4th-year doctoral student studying systematic theology at the University of Notre Dame. Majoring in religious studies and English in college, she graduated from the University of Virginia in 2006 and has been at Notre Dame doing graduate work since then. In her dissertation, she engages with ancient Christian thinker Augustine of Hippo, sixteenth-century Spanish mystic Teresa of Avila, and contemporary Anglican theologian Sarah Coakley in order to uncover a positive account of Christian self-love. Other theological interests include feminist theologies, understandings of intellectual disability, questions of suffering, the intersection of theology and literature, and accounts of embodiment. Abstract: In light of a deep-seated postmodern skepticism about the success of delimiting clearly the individual as moral agent, many twentieth- and twenty-first-century thinkers engaged in philosophical and theological questions have struggled to articulate the parameters of the individual's agency and identity in non-absolutist, non-hegemonic terms. Specifically, Christian ethicist Alasdair MacIntyre and secular Jewish philosopher Judith Butler have gravitated toward engaging with the notion of narrative identity as the key to understanding the moral self without abstraction, false universalism, and isolationist individualism. In this paradigm, a person makes moral decisions based on who she understands herself to be given the entire story of her life with and among others. For MacIntyre, discerning and constructing this narrative arc of one's life will equip one with the best framework for making moral decisions.
    [Show full text]
  • An Historical Overview of Justice and Rationality by Alasdair Macintyre with Special Reference to Whose Justice Which Rationality
    Contents lists available at Journal homepage: http://twasp.info/journal/home An Historical Overview of Justice and Rationality by Alasdair Macintyre with Special Reference To Whose Justice Which Rationality Anila Yasmin1, Riffat Iqbal ⃰ 1, Sara Batool Syed1, Amna Bibi 2 1Department of Philosophy, Bahauddin Zakariya University, Multan, Pakistan 2Govt Girls’ college, Rajanpur, Punjab, Pakistan Corresponding Author : R. Iqbal Email: [email protected] ; Tel: +92 3346472898 Published online : 19 Jan, 2019 Abstract: The present study aims to review and analyze the concept of justice and rationality and their relationship that how justice and rationality play a significant role for the establishment of any culture and society. The relationship of both elaborated with special reference to Alasdair Macintyre’s famous work “Whose Justice, Which Rationality” in which he presents an historical overview of justice and rationality. Professor Macintyre argued that there is no tradition-neutral origin of practical rationality that can be used to resolve disagreements about justice. Through an examination of four philosophical traditions, he argues that the conception of justice of each is linked to its own theory of practical rationality. He follows the progress of the Western tradition through “three different traditions:” from Homer and Aristotle to Thomas Aquinas, from Augustine to Thomas Aquinas and from Augustine to Hume. He maintains that there is no single conception of justice and rationality. Thus there are justices rather than justice and there are rationalities rather than rationality which are varying from society to society and person to person. Keywords: Justice, Rationality, Alasdair Macintyre, Traditions (Aristotelian, Augustinian, and Scottish) Introduction Justice is a broad notion that is based on a concept of moral rightness.
    [Show full text]
  • Alasdair Macintyre As an Aristotelian Economic Sociologist: Reading After Virtue with Dependent Rational Animals*
    Studia Philosophica Wratislaviensia vol. XIV, fasc. 1 (2019) DOI: 10.19195/1895-8001.14.1.2 CALEB BERNACCHIO ORCID: 0000-0002-1732-2458 IESE Business School Alasdair MacIntyre as an Aristotelian Economic Sociologist: Reading After Virtue with Dependent Rational Animals* Abstract: Alasdair MacIntyre’s After Virtue: A Study in Moral Theory presents a complex argument that spans numerous academic disciplines and combines empir- ical and theoretical analyses. Its radical conclusion has inspired activists and social critics from all sides of the ideological spectrum. Critics and commentators have questioned MacIntyre’s critique of modern moral philosophy and the plausibility of the concluding prescription, concerning the need to create new forms of community. But it has less often been asked in what sense the book presents a unified perspec- tive. In other words, how do the premises of MacIntyre’s argument, presented and defended throughout the text, warrant the conclusion? In this article, I partially for- malize the main argument of After Virtue, discussing the grounds for each premise, and explaining how they ground the book’s radical conclusion. In doing this, I argue that economic sociology, specifically Karl Polanyi’s theory of the modern market economy, plays a large role in supporting MacIntyre’s claims. After presenting the main argument of the text, I draw upon the social theory elaborated in Dependent Rational Animals: Why Human Beings Need the Virtues, specifically its theory of the relationship between vulnerability, dependence, and virtuous networks of giving and receiving, while briefly noting recent sociological criticisms of Polanyi, to argue that we have reason to be skeptical of MacIntyre’s empirical claims concerning the vicious character of modern social structures in After Virtue.
    [Show full text]
  • A Thomistic Critique of the Ethics of Alasdair Macintyre
    University of Central Florida STARS Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2004-2019 2014 A Thomistic Critique of the Ethics of Alasdair MacIntyre Marcus Otte University of Central Florida Part of the Philosophy Commons Find similar works at: https://stars.library.ucf.edu/etd University of Central Florida Libraries http://library.ucf.edu This Masters Thesis (Open Access) is brought to you for free and open access by STARS. It has been accepted for inclusion in Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2004-2019 by an authorized administrator of STARS. For more information, please contact [email protected]. STARS Citation Otte, Marcus, "A Thomistic Critique of the Ethics of Alasdair MacIntyre" (2014). Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2004-2019. 4581. https://stars.library.ucf.edu/etd/4581 A THOMISTIC CRITIQUE OF THE ETHICS OF ALASDAIR MACINTYRE by MARCUS SHANE OTTE B.A. University of Central Florida 2009 A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in the Department of Interdisciplinary Studies in the College of Graduate Studies at the University of Central Florida Orlando, Florida Fall Term 2014 Major Professor: Donald Jones © Marcus Shane Otte 2014 ii ABSTRACT Alasdair MacIntyre argues in favor of a historicist Thomism in ethics and political philosophy. In his theory, sociological categories take up much of the space traditionally occupied by metaphysics. This peculiar feature of MacIntyre’s Thomism, and its merits and demerits, is already a subject that has been taken up by many critics. In this thesis, these criticisms are supplemented and unified by identifying what is perhaps the most fundamental difficulty with MacIntyre’s ethics: his version of Thomism is problematic because it treats epistemology as first philosophy.
    [Show full text]
  • Reading Alasdair Macintyre's After Virtue
    Reading Alasdair MacIntyre’s After Virtue Christopher S. Lutz Bloomsbury Publishing, New York-London 2012 Dario Mazzola 1. Christopher S. Lutz takes up the hard challenge of proving After Vir- tue’s relevance to philosophers and scholars of any school. Three elements of his rich reading guide are worth stressing: the relevance of the philosophy of science in relation to MacIntyre’s study in moral theory; the enquiry into Ma- cIntyre’s Marxist background; the usage of other works to clarify After Virtue’s claims, especially short essays and scarcely known early books. In addition to these and parallel to the unfolding of the main argument, the reader contains a retrieval of major critiques that takes into account the most controversial points of After Virtue. 2. The philosophy of science plays a fundamental role not only in After Virtue, but also in the preparatory works that precede MacIntyre’s best-known book. “Epistemological crises, dramatic narrative, and the philosophy of sci- ence” (MacIntyre 1977, first published inThe Monist, vol. 60 n. 4, pp. 453-72) is an article in which the scientific method, the enquiring subject’s existential certainties and moral philosophy come to interact. Lutz expounds the content of this essay and recalls the importance MacIntyre himself attached to it: [It] marks a major turning point in my thinking... It is elicited by my reading of and encounters with Imre Lakatos and Thomas Kuhn and what was transformed was my conception of what it was to make progress in philosophy (5). To explain this claim, Lutz pays much attention to the theories of Lakatos, Kuhn, and Popper: an understandable move, considered that the aim of his book is that of helping people at their first encounter withAfter Virtue.
    [Show full text]
  • Jacques Maritain and Alasdair Macintyre on Human Rights
    THE CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY OF AMERICA Jacques Maritain and Alasdair MacIntyre on Human Rights A DISSERTATION Submitted to the Faculty of the School of Philosophy Of The Catholic University of America In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements For the Degree Doctor of Philosophy © Copyright All Rights Reserved By Carrie Rose Stibora Washington, D.C. 2013 Jacques Maritain and Alasdair MacIntyre on Human Rights Carrie Rose Stibora, Ph.D. Director: V. Bradley Lewis, Ph.D. This dissertation is an examination of the two divergent positions on human rights taken by prominent Catholic and Thomist philosophers Jacques Maritain and Alasdair MacIntyre. Maritain and MacIntyre, although having traveled similar paths, which included atheism, Marxism, anti-liberalism, seemingly have diametrically opposed position on the use of human rights. Maritain's work, including engagement with the drafting of the U.N. Declaration of Human Rights (1948), redefined human rights as an extension of the natural law tradition rooted in the work of Thomas Aquinas. Maritain's unique definition of rights included such notions as personalism, the common good, justice and had a basis in classical metaphysics. MacIntyre, on the other hand, rejects human rights because of their liberal provenance, maintaining that rights language is a necessary band-aid to motivate individuals to help those less fortunate in society where community, the common good and family have been significantly weakened because of liberalism. Starting with John XXIII and the Second Vatican Council up through Benedict XVI, Maritain's articulation of rights influenced several popes. It has become the stock language of the Catholic Church, despite centuries of pontiffs rebuking liberalism and rights language.
    [Show full text]
  • Alasdair Macintyre, WHOSE JUSTICE? WHICH RATIONALITY?
    Faith and Philosophy: Journal of the Society of Christian Philosophers Volume 8 Issue 1 Article 9 1-1-1991 Alasdair MacIntyre, WHOSE JUSTICE? WHICH RATIONALITY? Philip L. Quinn Follow this and additional works at: https://place.asburyseminary.edu/faithandphilosophy Recommended Citation Quinn, Philip L. (1991) "Alasdair MacIntyre, WHOSE JUSTICE? WHICH RATIONALITY?," Faith and Philosophy: Journal of the Society of Christian Philosophers: Vol. 8 : Iss. 1 , Article 9. DOI: 10.5840/faithphil1991818 Available at: https://place.asburyseminary.edu/faithandphilosophy/vol8/iss1/9 This Book Review is brought to you for free and open access by the Journals at ePLACE: preserving, learning, and creative exchange. It has been accepted for inclusion in Faith and Philosophy: Journal of the Society of Christian Philosophers by an authorized editor of ePLACE: preserving, learning, and creative exchange. BOOK REVIEWS Whose Justice? Which Rationality?, by Alasdair Macintyre. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1988. Pp. xii, 420. $22.95. PHILIP L. QUINN, University of Notre Dame. The bulk of this large book is devoted to telling what is in effect a tale of three cities. They are classical Athens, papal Rome of the high middle ages, and Presbyterian Edinburgh of the Scottish Enlightenment. The tale is episodic. Each of its episodes involves the development of a tradition of moral inquiry focused on justice and practical reasoning. And the tale as a whole is carefully constructed with an eye to drawing from it philosophical morals for today. Aristotle is the hero of the first episode, supported by a cast of characters that includes Homer, Thucydides, Sophocles and Plato.
    [Show full text]
  • Alasdair Macintyre and Contemporary Capacity for the Epistemic Criterion
    Alasdair MacIntyre and Contemporary Capacity for the Epistemic Criterion Brett Bertucio Abstract In this essay, Brett Bertucio evaluates the feasibility of employing what various theorists have termed the “epistemic criterion” in identifying controversies to be taught in the class- room. While sympathetic to the epistemic criterion, Bertucio argues that at present its application does not help delineate whether more than one reasonable view regarding an issue is plausible. Drawing on the thought of Alasdair MacIntyre, he contends that the decline of moral philosophy has reduced contemporary moral utterance to the mere re- statement of incommensurable ideologies. The author concludes by proposing two possi- ble remedies. First, the introduction of intellectual history into secondary social studies curricula may help students and their teachers become aware of the contours of contem- porary moral debate and examine their own epistemic assumptions. Second, the thought of the late Italian educator Luigi Giussani may provide a foundation to approach contro- versial issues based not on incommensurate conceptions of rationality but on existential desires. Keywords: moral philosophy, controversial questions, intellectual history, social studies educa- tion Practitioners often report that introducing controversial issues into the curriculum will inevitably raise tensions among colleagues, parents, and the wider community.1 It will come as no surprise then that the identification of an issue as controversial is itself a site of controversy. In many cases, to declare an issue controversial will validate minority opinions that many consider reprehensible. As a crude example, we might ask whether the present existence of neo-Nazism or the historical existence of moral arguments supporting Jim Crow mean that the morality of racial supremacy should be taught as an open question.
    [Show full text]
  • Ethics and Politics: Selected Essays, Volume 2 Alasdair Macintyre Excerpt More Information
    Cambridge University Press 0521854385 - Ethics and Politics: Selected Essays, Volume 2 Alasdair MacIntyre Excerpt More information part i Learning from Aristotle and Aquinas © Cambridge University Press www.cambridge.org Cambridge University Press 0521854385 - Ethics and Politics: Selected Essays, Volume 2 Alasdair MacIntyre Excerpt More information chapter 1 Rival Aristotles: Aristotle against some Renaissance Aristotelians A systematic history of Aristotelianism would be an immense under- taking populated by a great variety of rival Aristotles: Theophrastus’s, the Aristotle of the Neoplatonists, a whole range of medieval Aristotles – Farabi’s, ibn Rushd’s, Maimonides’s, Aquinas’s – and after them an equally impressive set of Renaissance Aristotles, followed by Coleridge’s, Thomas Case’s, and the whole variety of twentieth-century Aristotles from Werner Jaeger to Terence Irwin and beyond. I shall deal only with a very small selection from this set of rival Aristotles and even with them I shall be concerned only with a limited set of issues, issues concerning the relationship of moral and political theory to moral and political practice and of both to moral education. i Towards the end of the tenth book of the Nicomachean Ethics Aristotle argues that arguments by themselves are insufficient to make human beings good. Arguments may encourage and incite those of the young who already have some propensity for virtue – they may have, that is to say, rhetorical power. But with the majority they do not even have this kind of power and indeed it is one of the marks of already achieved 1 goodness to be willing to submit to argument.
    [Show full text]